Below you can read the full, unabridged reactions of a number of Texas state officials and higher education stakeholders on the censure.

University of Texas System Regent Wallace Hall: “The committee’s findings are based on distortions, untruths, and intentional misrepresentations. Speaker Straus and his committee have abused the public’s trust and money to cover up their improper interference in System operations, including to defend a university president who was repeatedly asked to leave. Intimidation of non-paid public servants by an “experimental” committee should not be tolerated by the public, the media, or other Texas officials. This is especially true when the effort is intended to interfere in the performance of duties that are required by law and the Texas Constitution. If committee members wanted the truth about abuses in the UT System, they would have provided a subpoena that would enable me to answer their questions fully. Instead, they chose to not subpoena me so I could not answer the only questions that matter. Texas deserves legislators who understand their oversight responsibility, and who will not manipulate state government processes to hide and protect their interests.”

Governor Rick Perry: “Regent Hall has acted how I expect all appointees to act – in the best interest of Texas. He has rightly asked tough questions and held people accountable for their actions, even in the face of withering personal attacks. I hope today closes this ugly chapter and Regent Hall’s critics can stop wasting time and start focusing on what’s important, ensuring higher education is affordable, accessible and accountable to all Texans.”

House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio): “I want to thank the Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations for its deliberate, thoughtful work over the last year. Today’s vote sends a clear message: The Legislature encourages regents and other executive appointees to ask difficult questions of the agencies in their care. But when appointees’ actions begin to harm those agencies — as Regent Hall’s repeatedly have — the Texas House will not ignore its own oversight role. Going forward, the monitoring requirements imposed by today’s resolution will prevent the types of abuses that this committee has discovered over the last year. The committee’s enhanced oversight, combined with reforms already implemented by the UT Board and the arrival of new UT System leadership, will help the System move past this episode and focus on the students it serves.”

Texas Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education: “Today’s condemnation of Regent Hall’s actions sends a signal that is bigger than one man, one institution or even the issue of higher education. The House Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations is appropriately focused on the type of behavior that Texans have the right to expect from gubernatorial appointees who are given the authority and responsibility to govern our state institutions. Whether appointees serve on a university board of regents or oversee a state agency, Texans deserve to have confidence in their integrity and motivations. Regent Hall’s actions have shredded that confidence and today’s censure sends an important signal that the Texas Legislature will not stand for abuse of power by political appointees. The Committee appropriately left the option of impeachment on the table, which is in keeping with its earlier 7-1 vote to move forward on impeachment and its finding that grounds for impeachment exist.”

University of Texas System Regents Chair Paul Foster: “As Chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, I must respond to the motion adopted today by the House Select Committee on Transparency in State Agency Operations.

While I respect the weighty responsibility and authority of the Select Committee, I must disagree strongly with certain findings, conclusions and actions found in the committee’s motion. At no time has there been a loss of institutional control within the University of Texas System, either on the part of the Board collectively or Chancellor Cigarroa. To our knowledge, no action taken by the Board or any individual member or by the Chancellor or System officials over the past few months has violated state law or any internal UT System rule or policy.

The Select Committee may disagree with actions taken by the Board, individual regents, the Chancellor or other System officials and may feel that other courses of action might have been more prudent or appropriate, but any allegation or insinuation of a loss of institutional control is completely erroneous. Individual regents have broad authority under the Texas Education Code and UT System rules and policies to inquire about matters at the System and at our institutions, and each has exercised this authority within the established parameters. Furthermore, UT System officers at all times have been fully compliant with the Texas Education Code and Regents’ Rules.

While I and others may not always concur with the style and methods employed by Regent Wallace Hall, I will affirm that he has always diligently worked to further what he sees as the best interests of the UT System.

The UT System has always worked cooperatively and collegially with the Texas Legislature and its committees and members, as we have done over these past several months with the Select Committee. The Board does not believe, however, that the extraordinary and unprecedented degree of legislative oversight set forth in the motion is justified or necessary. Nor do we believe it appropriate or fair that the costs of the work of the Select Committee, authorized by the House of Representatives alone, be imposed on the System.

Notwithstanding the views expressed today by the Select Committee, the UT System Board of Regents has over the last several years continued to advance higher education in Texas and at each of our 15 institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in our efforts to accelerate The University of Texas at Austin’s ascendancy to become America’s finest public research university, based on Chancellor Cigarroa’s Framework for Advancing Excellence Throughout the UT System. The Regents have unanimously and consistently supported recommendations made by Chancellor Cigarroa to provide UT Austin with resources to do this, including:

Establishing the first new medical school at an AAU institution in 37 years

Building a new engineering education and research center to ensure UT Austin’s preeminence as a national leader in a critically important discipline

Awarding more than $500 million in additional funds beyond UT Austin’s steady stream of funding from the Available University Fund to support recruitment and retention of star faculty, invest in student programs, and much more

I appreciate and concur with the Select Committee’s praise of Chancellor Cigarroa when we testified before the committee last month. We look forward to working with the Texas Legislature in the months and years ahead to promote our mission of teaching, research, patient care and service.”

UT System Board of Regents Vice Chair Gene Powell: “I am not surprised that the House Select Committee on Transparency refused today to recommend impeachment of Regent Wallace Hall. The Current Chairman of the Board Paul Foster, Chancellor Cigarroa and I, as the former Chairman of the Board, have all stated repeatedly and publicly that Regent Hall has not broken any state or Federal law, nor has he broken any Regent’s rules. All three of us have often observed that Regent Hall is one of the hardest working members of the Board. In addition I have expressed the opinion on numerous occasions that I do not believe Regent Hall has violated any reasonable measure of a Board member’s standard of conduct.

All the allegations against Regent Hall occurred during my tenure as Chairman of the Board of Regents. During that thirty month period I always found Regent Hall to be a sincere, dedicated and hardworking public servant who was constantly looking out for our students’ wellbeing and the taxpayers’ interest in their institutions of higher education. On the issue of Regent Hall’s personality, he has always been both sincere and polite in dealing with me, board members, the public, the press and the System staff. While I have, at times, witnessed Regent Hall being blunt, direct and tenacious in his pursuit of the facts and the truth, I have never observed him being rude nor impolite. Regent Hall impresses me as what the public looks for in their public servants – an individual who is not impressed with the trappings of his position, but is dedicated to serving his constituents by asking tough and often uncomfortable questions.

In reading the Motion of Admonishment and Censure I was astounded by the numerous incorrect, misleading and disingenuous statements that are included in the document. The UT System and our attorneys carefully laid out the facts on every issue considered by the Committee on Transparency. In the past when the Committee made mistakes about the facts those errors were brought to the Committee’s attention. However the Committee has chosen to use its own version of several fact sets and thus a significant number of the items discussed or outlined in the Motion are inaccurate. I see no way to fully respond to the Committee’s motion other than to ask the General Counsel for the System and the General Counsel for the Board to provide the Committee with corrections that will set the facts straight in the Motion.

In conclusion, I am pleased that the Committee on Transparency refused to impeach Regent Hall. However I am disappointed that the Committee failed the public by not being more accurate and forthright in their Motion of Admonishment and Censure.”

Lauren McGaughy is an Austin Bureau reporter for the Houston Chronicle. She can be reached at lauren.mcgaughy@chron.com or on Twitter @lmcgaughy.